DOHA, Qatar \u2014 Qatar has broken ranks with the Arab League to give close ally Turkey its full support for airstrikes in northern Iraq, according to an official foreign ministry statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, the Arab League condemned Turkey’s actions and called on Ankara to recognize the sovereignty of Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Arab League, which Qatar has been a member of since 1971, also called on Turkey and Iraq to increase cooperation in order to try and preserve peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the statement released by Qatar’s official news agency late on Tuesday however, Doha distanced itself from the Arab League declaration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The statement issued … on behalf of the Arab League was not discussed with the League member-states before releasing it,” it read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
“Qatar reiterated its full solidarity with the Republic of Turkey for its actions and measures to protect its borders and preservation of its security and stability.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relations between Qatar and Turkey have grown increasingly warm in recent years and 2015 has even been named by the countries as the “Qatar-Turkey Year of Culture.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turkey carried out the airstrikes in recent weeks, claiming they were targeting militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iraqi Kurdish officials claim civilians were killed during the raids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DOHA, Qatar \u2014 Qatar has broken ranks with the Arab League to give close ally Turkey its full support for airstrikes in northern Iraq, according to an official foreign ministry statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":82466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":47,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[11,33,47],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-39388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global","category-home","category-mideast-africa"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"7GXA2GTPPNBYPMNVKLB3FWL7GM","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/mideast-africa\/2015\/08\/05\/qatar-backs-turkey-over-bombing-raids-in-n-iraq\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n